POV: yumi
Summary
Yumi dreams. What she dreams is only sounds — three voices in the dark, arguing over her. *She's breaking through the patch.* *Strengthen it.* *We should cut these memories out with the machine — all of them, stretching back the entire month.* *We don't have the strength for that. And if we did, she'd notice. It would upset the balance.* *And if she breaks through?* *We deal with her, then try again.* Then nothing.
She wakes exhausted. The daystar is out — a good omen, she has always believed. She settles on the warm floor to wait for her attendants, and they do not come. Eventually it is Liyun herself who opens the door, hair messy and her bow untied, more frazzled than Yumi has ever seen her. The town is sick, Liyun says, then puts her hand to her head — she does not remember how she discovered it. Yumi must remain inside, in prayer and meditation.
Protocol broken — for the first time in what seems like forever — Yumi's timidity simply falls away. She asks, plainly: she would like to visit Torio City for the festival in a hundred days, and Liyun will see that it is arranged. There is no lecture, no glare. *Yes, all right. As you wish, Chosen. Is that all?* Liyun moves to the door, stops. *What is my duty?* *To guide the yoki-hijo.* *Yes, yes — but that is not all, is it?* She reaches into the pouch at her belt with a stiffness that looks painful and takes out a folded square of paper. She stares at it, drops it to the wagon floor, and flees out into a town that is completely empty — not a soul, not even in the fields.
Yumi kneels to pray to the spirits and sees the paper. Painted paper. She tilts her head and unfolds it. Two hands overlap above a sea of lights. One is hers. One is his. Memories of Painter return to her with the force of a hundred-foot tower of stones collapsing.
Across the shroud in Kilahito, Painter runs the city in a frenzy, hion lines casting his doubled shadow on the door of a tall house he hopes is the right one. It is. A companion answers — Hikiri, tall and bald, with a beard so massive his scalp gave up — and admits him to the Dreamwatch's lounge. Three full members are inside. Two play ping-pong. The third lounges in front of the viewer watching *Seasons of Regret*. Various companions read novels, score the ping-pong, and nap. The leader at the game table glances up when he enters only because she is hoping he is bringing her barbecue.
He blurts the warning. A hundred nightmares coming. The same kind that destroyed Futinoro. From the west. Please. The leader strolls over, pats his shoulder, congratulates him on his initiative, hints he might one day make Dreamwatch material himself, and returns to her game.
Hikiri takes him by the arm and steers him out. He asks the question that has driven his life — could he really still join them? — and Hikiri, rubbing his temples, softly tells him the truth. Do you like being a painter? It's a good job. Stable. Respected. Not too dangerous. *You should enjoy it.* The leader is the daughter of a senator. The next is the son of the investor funding the new college wing. The third is fourth-generation Dreamwatch. The Dreamwatch is appointment more than job. The full members do fight the stable nightmares — with a lot of help from companions who do a lot of training. Painter asks again about his coming army of nightmares. Hikiri smiles comfortingly and tells him they will get around to his stable nightmare soon, nods, and shuts the door.
Painter stands in the street, numb. He never had a chance — none of them ever had — no matter how skilled, no matter how hard they worked. He is a nobody from a small town. In another life this realisation would have been the biggest of his year. Tonight it is a pale second to the larger one. He is completely alone, and he will have to save the city by himself.